


Knowing

by honooko



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honooko/pseuds/honooko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jun has always known he was different; he wonders if everyone else knows too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing

**Author's Note:**

> My giftfic for astrangerenters at LJ's je_holiday fic exchange. Matsumiya friendship.

Jun had always known.

He read (a bit) about some other guys, about their 'lightbulb moments' and discovery. He almost envied them that; it meant there was at least a brief period when they hadn't known what they were. For a short time, they really thought they were normal.

Jun had never thought he was normal.

It had nothing to do with stereotypes. It had nothing to do with hobbies, personality traits, appearances... he just knew, for as long as he could remember, that there wasn't a woman on the planet that would _ever_ interest him like _that_.

He didn't tell anyone. He couldn't; what would they say? What would they do? Fear gripped him tightly in a fist and refused to let him go. He got older, and the grip got stronger, and suddenly he was surrounded, always, by the fear of being discovered.

Or being _caught_.

He was slumped against a side wall in the rehearsal room, draining his water bottle. Someone threw a towel on his head and slid down next to him. Proximity identified it as Nino. Jun pulled the towel off his head and tossed it so it smacked Nino square in the face. It hooked on his nose, leaving him partially masked for a moment.

"Nff nsss," Nino said through the towel. Jun reached over without looking and pulled it off.

"Not nice," Nino repeated, his voice now unimpeded. He grinned at Jun; when that got no response, Nino widened his eyes to a comic level of feigned innocence until Jun had to duck his head and snort.

"There," Nino said, "now you're smiling."

Jun was smiling. He was smiling at Nino, who was sitting very close to him, and talking very softly to him. Nino grabbed Jun's water bottle and drank from it, and Jun suddenly noticed that when you drink from a water bottle, your lips touch the rim. So his lips touched what Nino's lips were touching and—

Jun stood up. He wasn't smiling anymore.

"Practice," he grunted half-heartedly and shuffled back to the group learning the choreo. Nino watched him go.

Nino wasn't smiling either. Jun felt bad, but people would know if he wasn't careful. He wasn't careful enough around Nino to start with. Nino just had a way with people; Jun could feel how comfortable he was with the other boy, how much fun they had sometimes.

And then he could imagine what Nino's face would look like, if Jun accidentally gave himself away. Horror, disgust, maybe anger—it could be anything. At best, Nino would just quietly reject him and never speak to him again. At worst, he could tell everyone else and they would say and do horrible things to Jun because he was different. _Different._

Jun locked down his thoughts and focused on the dance, pretending he couldn't feel Nino's stare burning holes in the back of his skull.

 

"Deliveries!" Aiba sang, slumping over Nino's back. Toma perked up immediately; Aiba only delivered two things: food, and porn. Both were appreciated by Toma. Aiba immediately pulled out a magazine, bestowing it lovingly on Toma's extended palms.

"Picked that one for you special," Aiba said. "Lots of foreign girls in that one."

"You're really heavy, you know," Nino said from where he was being squashed. Aiba slid off him and began digging in the same plastic bag that held Toma's magazine. He pulled out three more, and four milk buns. Jun looked at the pile, hesitating. He didn't want any of them, but if he didn't take one, then they'd probably ask him why. Every time this happened, which was every few weeks, Jun had the same internal battle. Pick, or not pick. He always landed on pick, and then spent precious more seconds deciding which magazine to select.

Nino picked up a milk bun, opening the wrapper and balling it up in one hand. He hadn't picked a magazine yet, but as he chewed on the bun, he splayed the magazines out in a considering fashion, all the covers plainly visible.

They all made Jun terribly uncomfortable. Porn in general made him uncomfortable. Didn't these people feel strange, knowing how many complete strangers had seen their naked bodies? Didn't it bother them that people knew what they looked like while they were—well, having sex?

"I already looked through them all," Aiba said, "so no hurry." Nino made a humming noise that signaled only that he'd heard what Aiba said. Nino was so good at this, from Jun's perspective. He somehow managed to make this entire affair so casual and unimportant that Jun could almost relax too. Almost.

Aiba picked one out of the stack, rolling over until he was lying on his back, holding the glossy pages over his head with a lewd grin.

Two left. Time was starting to drag. Was Nino waiting for Jun to pick? He couldn't tell. Should he wait for Nino? No, that was too suspicious. He should pick first, to make Nino think Jun had a preference in all of this. He reached out a hand, but froze at the last second. Which one?

Nino's bun-free hand pushed one towards him. Jun noticed that the girl on the cover was not naked, like the others. She was not exactly dressed, but she wasn't totally naked. Jun's shoulders relaxed a bit; he wouldn't have to pretend to be enjoying something that made him squirm in a bad way. He looked up.

Nino was watching him. It was hard to tell, with a milk bun hanging out of his mouth, but Jun was almost positive Nino was smiling at him.

Jun grabbed the magazine roughly and turned around, pretending to look at it. He turned pages when he heard the whisper of Aiba turning them. If he focused, he could keep the same pace and nobody would notice Jun wasn't really looking at anything at all.

A milk bun landed in his lap, and Jun felt Nino's spine digging into his. They were sitting back-to-back now, Nino casually turning pages and sometimes making amused, giggling snort noises. He didn't seem to think they were _hot_ , like Aiba and Toma did. He thought they were funny.

Jun looked at his magazine. The girl on this page was making a very odd face; she looked kind of like she was about to sneeze. Jun snickered at the thought, and turned the page. Suddenly everyone looked varying levels of silly, with contorted expressions and exaggeratedly wanton spreads of their bodies.

"This is fun," Nino said quietly, almost too quiet for Aiba and Toma to hear. Jun wondered if Nino was talking to him, or informing him.

Either way, 'deliveries' got easier after that.

 

"He's so _smart_ ," Jun said reverently, watching Sakurai Sho hunched over a textbook. They'd been spying on him for a while now; Aiba said Sho was nice, if a little... weird. Nino laughed outright, but Nino was actually friends with Sho and was enjoying everyone offer their ideas of what Sho might actually be like.

"He's smart about _school_ ," Nino emphasized. "He's a moron about other stuff, honest."

"But he's really cool, too," Jun said with a sigh. " _Really_ cool."

"He does have that piercing," Toma said, clearly wishing he could reach Sho's level of cool without actually doing anything.

"And he's mysterious, you know? We hardly see him around here these days," Jun continued. Nino was giving him a funny look and Jun felt compelled to add, "Well, we don't!"

Nino rolled his eyes.

"If you like him so much, why don't you marry him?" Aiba teased, elbowing Jun in the side. It was a gentle nudge, but Jun went white as though the blow had knocked all the air from his lungs.

Marry him. Marry him. Marry him.

 _They know._

Jun felt like he was going to be sick. He must have looked it, too, because Aiba's eyebrows snapped together and Toma put a hand on his back, but Jun jerked away from the touch.

"Are you—" Aiba started, but Nino grabbed Jun by the elbows, both of them, and propelled him away from the doorway. It was amazing how strong Nino could be when he needed to, Jun observed absently from the high place above himself where his good sense and motor functions were currently residing. Nino was just driving him now, steering him away from rehearsal halls, away from offices, away from break rooms, away from _everyone_. He pushed Jun face-first into a lesser-used downstairs bathroom, locking the door behind them.

Jun lurched against a bathroom stall door, sliding down when his legs gave out. He still felt cold all over; he hugged his arms to himself tightly, shivering. His teeth chattered and he clenched his jaw hard, fear taking over his body.

Nino was crouching in front of him, staring at him. Jun felt like Nino was looking straight into his brain and reading his thoughts. He put his hands over his ears as though that might keep Nino out.

"Jun," Nino said firmly. " _Jun._ Look at me."

He didn't want to. Nino would see. Nino saw everything, didn't Aiba always say that? That Nino knew everybody's secrets because Nino just knew, just by looking at you, what was going on? Didn't Aiba tell him Nino saw things because Nino had been through things too?

Jun looked at him. He was embarrassed to feel hot tears on his face.

"They don't know," Nino said calmly, in a low, soothing voice. "Nobody knows, Jun, okay?"

Jun kept looking at him, suddenly feeling as though Nino's voice was the only thing holding his shaking pieces together.

"Nobody?" Jun asked in a whisper.

"Nobody," Nino promised. He brushed the hair off of Jun's forehead. "And nobody will, not from something as stupid as that. You worry too much."

"But _you_ know," Jun said, because it was clearly true. Nino shrugged his shoulders, his gaze sliding off Jun's face and into a corner, his expression going carefully flat.

"You're not the only one, you know," he said in a very deliberately measured, mild tone. Jun's eyes went wide as his brain processed this statement. Nino knew, but only because Nino was... different too?

"But the magazines—"

"Are funny," Nino said.

"And the jokes—"

"Are stupid, in a kind of funny way," Nino said.

"But the _stories_ —"

"I stop listening," Nino said, wrinkling his nose.

Nino looked at Jun then, a quick sideways glance, and Jun suddenly noticed a darting nervousness behind his eyes. It occurred to him that maybe Nino had never said any of this out loud before.

Maybe Nino had never told anyone either, before.

"We're not normal," Jun said, sounding small.

"No," Nino agreed, "we're definitely not."

Hesitantly—Nino could spook if he wasn't careful—Jun reached out a hand. He caught Nino's bony elbow and tugged a little, until Nino turned on his heels and slumped against the wall next to him. In the strongest voice he could muster, Jun said, "But I guess we're not alone, huh."

Nino caught one of Jun's hands and squeezed.

"No," he said, smiling and letting his head drop on Jun's shoulder. "I guess not."


End file.
